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it furnishes a key to the understanding of drainage and also explains many facts connected with climate, the life, the productions, and even the locality of the cities.

Let us examine the map for a moment. If you had never read about the surface of France, you could tell that the mountains are in the southern and southeastern portions; the lowlands are in the Northern and Western parts, the land slopes toward the English channel and Bay of Biscay; the highest point is Mt. Blane or in that vicinity; the Loire flows westward and the Seine and Garonne flow north-westward; the rivers flow across gently sloping territory, and the climate south of the mountains is far warmer than that north of the mountains. Here is an opportunity for inquiring into the reasons why France is so much warmer than Wisconsin.

In order that the child may have a definite idea of the map, ask him to make his own. He should be able to draw a relief map and also a sketch map keying the cities, mountains and rivers. Drill upon this until the child knows it perfectly. In some schools the chief end of geographical study seems to be to acquire facility in drawing maps. Be sure that you teach your pupils through the use of the map and not for the sake of the map.

We should look upon this part of the work as we would the skeleton in physiology. When the child has thoroughly familiarized himself with the map he understands the anatomy of geography. He has locality-but not humanity.

Now is the time to clothe the dry bones of geography with travel, description, and stories. Children should be given topics from Carpenter's Geographical Reader, Coe's Modern Europe, Chamberlain's How We Are Clothed and other reference books that they may study carefully into the industries, commerce, exports and imports, government and education. In all of this work reason out as much as possible. If they have coal regions, where would they be? Where would the manufacturing be done? Where would they grow the most grapes? Where could they cultivate the mulberry tree? MAUD BREWSTER.

HOW TO CONDUCT A "PRONOUNCING" CON

TEST.

As an extra incentive to the reading class to remember the pronunciation of the words in the selections read, announce a pronouncing contest to

be held during the class period at some indefinite future time, the words to be taken from the recent reading lessons. Conduct the contest after the manner of a spelling match. Have the words written on the board, and the class arranged in two sections chosen by two leaders. At a given signai let the first pupil in the first section pronounce the first word in the list. If that is pronounced correctly, the first pupil in the second section pronounces the second word in the list. If a word is mispronounced, it goes to the other side, and if pronounced correctly there, the leader of that side chooses a pupil from the other section. Let the contest be brisk, and nothing but absolutely correct pronounciation, and clear-cut enunciation be accepted. DORA B. THOMPSON.

SOURCES OF MATERIALS FOR CONVERSATION

LESSONS.

One source of material for conversation lessons is pictures. Secure copies of old magazines, railroad folders, etc. Cut out the illustrations, and mount them on sheets of drawing paper or card board, one picture on each sheet. Then classify them to illustrate different subjects, such as modes One collection of travel, various industries, etc. of pictures to illustrate various modes of transpor tation is the result of one evening's work for five people. It contains a man on horseback, an oxcart, elephants at work in a lumber yard, oxen yoked to wagons, reindeer drawing sledges, Russian horse carts, the old prairie schooner, mules laden with saddle bags, a horse and cab, a Holland milk cart, omnibus and horses, dogs in a pack train, Japanese maidens in juirikishas and sedan chairs, Ceylon natives carrying fruits in baskets suspended from poles and in jars on their heads, rafts, canoes, sail boats, steamships, naptha launches, people on the snowshoe, the ski, skates, bicycles, automobiles, steam engines, street cars, DORA B. THOMPSON. air ships, balloons, etc.

"A WORD TO THE WISE."
Little owlet in the glen,
I'm ashamed of you;
You are ungrammatical

In speaking as you do.

You should say, "To whom! To whom!"
Not "To who! To who!"

Your small friend, Miss Katy-did,
May be green, 'tis true,
But you never hear her say,
"Katy do! She do!"

-Louise M. Laughton, in St. Nicholas.

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HOW CHILDREN LEARN.

MARY D. BRADFORD.

The supervisor had just listened to an exercise that elicited from her the following comment: "Miss you have given here an excellent illustration of the truth that through words a child. may learn little or nothing. How do we come to have clear images of things? In but one way: our senses must operate to furnish us with the raw material for thinking and imaging; through association with sense-experience of some sort, words come to possess power of recall,-come to have meaning."

It was a language exercise that called out this, and it ran thus:

Teacher: "What is the story I told you yesterday?"

Answer: "The story of Gemilla."

Teacher: "Where did she live?" (No answer.) Teacher: "Was it a cold or a warm country?" The children had learned the significance of the teacher's intonations when putting a question of that sort, and hence chose rightly, answering in concert, "Warm."

Teacher: "What name did we have for the land where she lived?" Several children were called upon and finally one was found who remembered and answered, "Desert."

Teacher: "Yes, desert. Now what is a desert? Make a nice sentence." (Scored one good point for not saying nice "story.")

Answer: "A desert is a bridge."

Teacher: (somewhat disappointed and embarrassed) "Oh, no, a desert isn't a bridge. It is a kind of country. Now what kind of a country?" (no answer.) "Is it a country with lots of trees ?" Answer: "Oh, yes, it has nice trees."

Teacher: (now on the defensive) "Oh, no. Don't you remember when we were developing this lesson yesterday, how I told you that a desert is a country all sand,-a wide stretch of level sand?" But why report further the pathetic farce!

Here was a teacher who either did not know how children learn, or was too indifferent to her business, to take the necessary pains to make her teaching such that learning should result.

Here was a school composed of children whose parents are mostly foreign born; many of these parents are illiterate and the home contributes lit

tle towards building up in the child a vocabulary by means of which he may comprehend a verbal presentation. presentation. Hence, the greater need imposed. upon the teacher of objective teaching-; hence the need at every turn of pictures, pictures, PICTURES.

A fundamental law to direct all teaching effort is this: Proper development is possible only through a high degree of self-activity, Learning is an active process, and hence a developing process, and it is only when teaching is so done that interest and consequent attention result and that expression in one or more of its forms is allowed, that a child learns.

All this familiar pedagogical ground the supervisor and teacher went over after that exercise, and finally the best advice the former could summon was offered: "If you are going to spend any more time as a primary teacher, use your next vacation in collecting pictures to illustrate the work that has now become a part of all good courses, such as 'Seven Little Sisters.' If you want your words to call up right images, prepare your pupils' minds to do so by giving their imaginations some material for such a constructive process. Words alone may result in nothing more nearly like a true concept, than bridges are like deserts."

THE RIVULET.

Run, little rivulet, run!
Summer is fairly begun.

Bear to the meadow the hymn of the pines,

And the echo that rings where the waterfall shines; Run, little rivulet, run!

Run, little rivulet, run!

Sing to the fields of the sun

That wavers in emerald, shimmers in gold,
Where you glide from your rocky ravine, crystal-cold;
Run, little rivulet, run!

Run, little rivulet, run!

Sing of the flowers, every one,Of the delicate harebell and violet blue Of the red mountain rose-bud, all dripping with dew; Run, little rivulet, run!

Run, little rivulet, run!

Carry the perfume you won

From the lily, that woke when the morning was gray To the white waiting moonbeam adrift on the bay; Run, little rivulet, run!

Run, little rivulet, run!

Stay not till summer is done! Carry the city the mountain-birds' glee; Carry the joy of the hills to the sea; Run, little rivulet, run!

-Lucy Larcom.

MISS MCCORMICKS TALKS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS

THE CLOSE.

The long vacation is near again. Another school year has passed leaving its pleasures and its disappointments. Not a little pleasure has come to the writer in the preparation of matter for this column. The readers have been appreciative and words of encouragement have frequently been received. Here's a wish that the coming weeks will bring us all a renewal of physical strength and energy which will put us into just the right attitude to begin our work next fall.

THAT WORD METHOD-AN ECHO.

The following is from a letter I recently received from a young teacher in one of the rural schools.

"Now for the littlest' one. He entered after spring vacation and, oh, I wish you knew him. He's five years old and fat. He's just about the dearest piece you've ever seen. Short, fat, five, and cute. I taught him the word 'dove' a short time ago. I drilled and drilled-but alas, he will call it nothing but pigeon in spite of my efforts to have him call it 'dove.' It takes about as much courage as I can muster up to keep from hugging him right in the school."

HOW ONE TEACHER OBSERVED THE "LAST

DAY."

It was in a little log school house in the pineries of Northern Wisconsin. It was the last week of April and just one week more of the school year remained. It was five minutes to four o'clock on Friday afternoon when the teacher passing around the room laid a dainty envelope on each child's seat. These notes bore the children's names in the teacher's own writing.

No time was lost in determining the contents of the envelopes. This is what they found written on the paper.

"Miss Bee requests the pleasure of your company to go nutting Friday afternoon, May seventh. Bring baskets. Party will leave school house at two o'clock."

What did Miss Bee mean? Nuts at this time of year? Surely Miss Bee knew better. One of the youngest children said, "Maybe Miss Bee knows where the squirrels hid some nuts last fall."

During the days which followed many comments were made and not a few questions asked but Miss Bee only smiled and kept her secret. There was nothing to do but wait.

On the Tuesday following the delivery of the invitations a terrific storm came on. There were six inches of snow on the level and the drifts were up to the school house windows. You know in that northern country, frequently, "Winter lingers late." Prospects for going nutting were poorer than ever and curiosity at its height. When the eventful Friday afternoon arrived however, the snow was practically gone and two o'clock found every child's basket laden and ready to start.

The teacher told them that in order to carry out her plans it would be necessary to blind-fold each. one. They did not object and the party, led by the teacher, soon left the school house.

After being conducted back and forth, and up and down until the children thought they had gone at least a mile, a stop was made and the bandages removed. The children found themselves on a sunny southern slope just a few hundred feet from the school house.

Pounds and pounds of peanuts had been hidden round about and the nutting began. "My but we had a good time. I'll never forget the last day of school this year," said the little girl who told me about it.

THE LAST DAY.

The peculiar problems of the weeks and days coming at the close of a long and strenuous school year, require for their solution all the energy that teachers and pupils may be able to muster and the extras entailed by an elaborate musical and literary last day program make such a closing unwise and undesirable.

Fortunately for teachers and children the old plan is gradually coming to be looked upon as old fashioned and out of date.

If there is a demand for an "At Home" day, do not leave it for the last day or even the last week. Let those days be sacred for a close spiritual relationship of teacher and pupils. Let them be the days of all the year when the individuality of each child gets its recognition. Let the closing hours be so free from care and full of happiness

the little minds when, occasionally, during the long vacation they in imagination go back to school.

for all that pleasant memories will be revived in

VISITORS.

Teachers always want visitors to go away with a favorable impression but nine times out of ten. they do not know how to treat them and in their over anxiety they are more than likely to do just the thing they shouldn't do.

First and last, make the visitors feel "at home." What do I mean by that? I will try to make it clear by an illustration.

I have in mind a home where I visit sometimes. I like the people and I have reason to believe that I stand high in their good opinion but I never get farther than the parlor and there is always a sort of formality about my call that I can never quite overcome. My hostess means well but she just

doesn't know how to be different.

In some other homes I am always taken to the family sitting room and enjoy my visits more. In others I have the privilege of going anywhere in the house where my hostess happens to be busy.

In still another I am welcomed almost as members of the family and feel free to come and go as I please being certain that my visit is always a source of pleasure and that my hostess is not worrying over my entertainment.

Things to do if you wish your visitors to have that "at home" feeling.

(a) Be cordial in your reception.

(b) Place a seat if possible where the children and see.

(c)

Introduce the visitor to the children. (This is worth while.)

(d) Explain work briefly so visitor may follow intelligently from the beginning.

(e) Continue regular work unless requested to do otherwise.

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Write words which are names of more than one thing.

Copy words of one, two, or three syllables.
Copy words in which s has sound of z.
Make lists of two, three, and four letter words.
Copy words beginning with th and wh.
Copy words ending with ng.

A CHANGE.

Well has it been said, "Variety is the spice of life." Never during the year is the truth therein expressed so applicable to schoolroom life as it is this last month when so many live things attract us-teachers and children-into God's great outdoors.

If it is not possible for us to do some work outside let us at least bring as many of the live things as possible into the schoolroom and study them. there.

If, as the year draws to a close, we weigh our class and finding it wanting decide that we must serve more drill, let us make an effort to present it with sauce of a new flavor.

Happiness is an important item in a child's education.

Children read from what they already know. Imitation makes children aware of their capacity.

The teacher must play as well as the pupil. Spiritual ease comes to every teacher when she can say, frankly, "I do not know."

Never fail to seize an impulse in a child that will lead to his better development.

Vitality dies out of any device if used to too great an extent.

Thought progresses by meeting crises. Let us be sure that we recognize the decisive moments.

TIMELY THOUGHTS.

In these sweet June days
The teacher and scholar trust
Their parting feet to separate ways.

-J. G. Whittier.

No price is set by the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.

-J. R. Lowell.

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